CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS

  • December 31, 2015, 09:40:49 AM
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 ... 14

Author Topic: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!  (Read 15657 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

rhythmdevils

  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +131/-65535
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: I am a geek!!
  • Team Cheap, Picky Basterds
    • www.my40dollarorhosarebetterthanyour1kflagship.com
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #30 on: March 06, 2013, 06:27:08 AM »

Where are these rooms that cause 10 dB swings in response?  Have you actually ever heard that?  Or do i have invisible acoustic angels following me everywhere?  Or do audiophiles all live in little cement basements with no furniture?  10dB is huge. 
Logged

shipsupt

  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +160/-4
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1687
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #31 on: March 06, 2013, 09:08:34 AM »

Obviously you guys haven't heard the ATH-M50!  FTW! 

Besides, how can you collect like 30 speakers? 

I have to agree that space and circumstance plays a part in my personal decisions. 

My previous place was pretty small so headphones were a great compromise to get great sound without taking over my space.  I kept a very small speaker set up that doubled as my entertainment system.

Now with a dedicated listening room I have had a chance to spread out.  I picked up some modest monitors and I am really enjoying getting the sound out of my head.  My wife and I spend a bunch of time lounging and reading while I spin vinyl.  Unfortunately this assignment is temporary, so I don't want to get too crazy with investing in a speaker system that may or may not fit in whatever place we get when we return the US. 

When I return I think I'll fall into that camp that does both... The DIY kit road looks really fun.



Logged
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Deep Funk

  • Sure is fond of ellipses...
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +111/-3
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2344
  • Born in 1988, eclectic 90-ties!
    • Radjahs2cents
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #32 on: March 06, 2013, 10:41:01 AM »

Two to four powered monitors aptly placed with specific volume settings for the best combination of stereo and detail and I'm done with speakers. A big spacious speaker set up doesn't appeal to me. Good monitors aren't always expensive...

I'll always have headphones though. I need something that can isolate me from my surroundings.
Logged
Few things keep me sane: my loved ones, my music and my hobbies. Few is almost an understatement here...

donunus

  • Cheapus Sexus
  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +52/-3
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 875
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #33 on: March 06, 2013, 10:50:55 AM »

Harbeths are massively overrated buzz boxes. Feh.

I don't agree. I find Harbeth's to be really dependent on room/placement/and the system behind them. I heard the same Harbeth speakers driven by different components in different rooms at the same store and the other system was not much better than my hd600 but the pair at the other room was amazing! I mean they would easily qualify to be in the top 5 best in sound at a Las Vegas CES.
Logged
Team Delicious and Juicy Sound

grev

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +8/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
  • Avant-garde Clementine Wanderpanzer
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #34 on: March 06, 2013, 01:34:08 PM »

The two are... very different experiences, it's very similar to saying that you have an ipad (portable computer) and you don't need the Laptop/PC anymore because the ipad is doing everything better.

I find these extremists to be... completely destructive of everything they have seen and will encounter in their paths.  :)p3

I haven't bought any headphone gear for a while now and definitely not getting anymore speakers because of my plans to go living in Hong Kong again.
Logged

Sphinxvc

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +13/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 157
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #35 on: March 06, 2013, 02:03:05 PM »

What's your 800 rig again?

Well it *was* Zodiac > F3 > HD800.  It was my favorite headphone, second only to the Paradox.  (Just priorities) 

About staging I see it exactly as Dave said, with headphones the best you can hope for (and the best is the HD800 in this regard) is a stage with an imaging space the size of...an acoustic afro*.  With a well set up speaker/room it can sound like armageddon, or like what ascension must have felt (and sounded) like, depending on what you're listening to.  It's complete and enveloping.

Where are these rooms that cause 10 dB swings in response?  Have you actually ever heard that?  Or do i have invisible acoustic angels following me everywhere?  Or do audiophiles all live in little cement basements with no furniture?  10dB is huge.

There are these marketing videos on youtube for acoustic panels that show measurements** with significant suck outs, etc, pretty big swings from what I recall.  They also have before/after recordings of the space on these same vids, and it's quite easy to tell how much of a difference smoothening the response makes after you add the panels.  These are normal rooms by the way with furniture and real world problems.

*Albeit a big afro. 

**By the way I understand that the measurements can be purposefully convenient. 
Logged

arnaud

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +40/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 170
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #36 on: March 06, 2013, 02:49:21 PM »

Yeah, 10dB is really nothing out of the ordinary for a regular room. You need serious work to damp the low frequency modes. Once you're in the midrange, the proportion of direct and reverberated field is going to also affect the perceived response, 5dB is absolutely in the realm of possibilities.

I'm also of the opinion it is stupid to claim either one is better than the other.  But at a given price point it does seem cheaper to get to the top with headphones. Trying to bring up the arguments of imaging / chest impact is silly, it's all a question of habits and what you are after.  In my case, I find most speaker rigs I get a chance to listen to (and it goes to the very high end in Tokyo) plain suck in comparison of what my headphone rig brings me (the speed, the articulation, the precise layering).

Headphone systems are getting more and more expensive by the year and loosing of their proposition value but still, you can't just ignore the fact it takes a whole lot of effort to optimize a speaker rig in a way it can sound as faithful as a good headphone rig does.
Logged

Sphinxvc

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +13/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 157
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #37 on: March 06, 2013, 03:26:20 PM »

it's all a question of habits and what you are after.

sactly
Logged

ader

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +25/-1
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 197
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #38 on: March 06, 2013, 03:36:13 PM »

My speaker setup's fairly modest (Conductor's DAC -> Some Yamaha Receiver -> PSB Imagine Mini's + SudSeries 1), but I have to admit it has better timbre than most headphone setups I could throw together.  I generally find myself preferring the more immersive aspects of headphone listening, though.  And am often too self-conscious of people hearing what I'm listening to.

-Edit-

I also feel like I'd be compelled to just get ridiculously high end stuff if I ever really got into speakers and it would probably be a lot more expensive (including everything but the computer) than the $10,250 (I think?) headphone setup I'll be looking at soon.  Iuno, this hobby isn't a rational thing for me.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 03:44:45 PM by ader »
Logged

AstralStorm

  • Speculation and Speculums
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +250/-164
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 559
  • Warning: causes nearby electronics to go haywire
Re: Headphones as good as $40K speaker systems for a fraction of? BULLSHIT!
« Reply #39 on: March 06, 2013, 03:42:44 PM »

Headphones? How about IEMs?  :)p15

Of course both are fiddly to match your personal head transfer function (and in IEMs, pinna and ear canal response), and even then some virtualization (e.g. crossfeed) is a must for correct soundstaging...
Logged
For sale: Hifiman HE-500; Paradox; Brainwavz B2. PM me if you would like to buy them.
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 ... 14